Spotlight on economy: Shoppers may have shunned retailers in January

(This article has been updated to reflect the postponement of Janet Yellen’s Senate testimony. Government data will be released directly on the Web if federal offices are closed.)

Frosty the Snowman had a great time in January. The same cannot be said for shoppers.

Unusually severe weather – polar vortexes and all – made it harder for people to drive and shop in the first month of 2014. There probably was a bit of a hangover from the holiday gift-buying season, too.

Sales at auto dealers, for example, slipped to an annual pace of 15.2 million in January from 15.3 million in December and 16.3 million in November. And other retails also reported fewer people browsing in their stores.

That’s why economists polled by MarketWatch expect sales at U.S. retailers to decline by 0.1% in January. And if the large auto sector is excluded, sales were probably flat. The report will be released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern by the Commerce Department.

Is that a bad omen for 2014? Probably not. Consumer spending is the key faster U.S. growth, but poor weather in January makes it harder to figure out what’s going on. Another retail report or two will give us a better sense of whether Americans are going to buy more stuff this year. Stay tuned.

At the same time, the Labor Department will issue jobless claims for the first week of February. The number of people applying for jobless benefits is expected to fall slightly to 330,000 from 331,000 in the prior week. Initial claims, a proxy for layoffs, have averaged 335,000 over the past six months and remain near a post-recession low.

The government will also issue business inventories for December at 10 a.m. Eastern – a 0.4% gain is expected.

Late Wednesday, the Senate postponed a hearing with new Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen because of an impending storm. Yellen testified on an array of topics during a six-hour hearing on Tuesday in the House, but sometimes the different congressional chambers generate different storylines. Her appearance has not been rescheduled yet.